BUSH IS COOKED...he has started a CIVIL WAR in a country that was previously STABLE....
Shiite fury explodes in Iraq
By Edward Wong The New York Times
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
BAGHDAD At least 138 Iraqis, most of them Sunni Arabs, including a number of clerics, were killed in central Iraq on Wednesday and Thursday in the maelstrom of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of one of the country's most sacred Shiite shrines, Iraqi officials said.
Seven American soldiers also died in bombings, the U.S. military said Thursday.
Sunni Arab politicians broke off talks with Shiite and Kurdish leaders over the formation of a new government, saying that the Shiites were encouraging reprisals against Sunnis.
Across Iraq, thousands of Shiites took to the streets in a second day of protests against the attack in Samarra, 95 kilometers, or 60 miles, north of Baghdad, which destroyed the dome of Al Askariya, also known as the Golden Mosque because of its color.
The protests Thursday were mostly peaceful, though Shiites raided several Sunni mosques in Baghdad and set fire to at least two.
In the deadliest attack in the past two days, 47 people returning from a protest on Wednesday were pulled off buses south of Baghdad and shot in their heads, an Interior Ministry official said Thursday.
Three journalists working for Al Arabiya television were ambushed and killed by gunmen on the outskirts of Samarra as they were reporting on the shrine bombing, the network said Thursday. (Page 10)
Political and religious leaders, including the Shiite cleric Moktada al- Sadr, whose followers were thought to be largely responsible for the anti- Sunni reprisals, called for restraint. They warned that Iraq could slip into full-fledged civil war.
The government set a curfew of 8 p.m. and canceled leave for all soldiers and police officers. Government offices were closed, and the police operated checkpoints along the relatively quiet streets of the capital.
With the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, which houses the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, and with retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques, tension was high across the country on Thursday.
The U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, spent much of the day talking to politicians and appealing for calm.
He asked that Iraq's political process remain on track, despite the anger felt by Sunni and Shiite Arabs, both toward each other and toward Americans.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadany, a senior official in the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest Sunni Arab party, said by telephone that his party had withdrawn from talks to form a four-year government with the main Shiite and Kurdish parties.
Mashhadany said his group would not return to the negotiating table until the government had brought to justice those responsible for attacking Sunni Arabs.
"We're not ready to negotiate with the killers," he said. "We think what happened yesterday was organized. It had all been organized the night before."
The attacks and deaths in Iraq over the past two days add up to the worst sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion.
But Mashhadany accused the U.S. military of standing aside as Shiites slaughtered Sunnis: "The security portfolio is in the hands of the Americans, but yesterday we didn't see any Humvees," he said. "We didn't see any military reaction."
U.S. commanders have said they hope to make a significant reduction in the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of this year, and that enough Iraqi soldiers and police officers should be trained by then to hand over security responsibilities in many areas.
The Pentagon said that the failure to prevent the bombing and subsequent violence was the responsibility of new Iraqi police units.
Even in Iraq, local security forces were said to have done little to contain the violence of the past days, and in some cases they reportedly participated in attacks on mosques.
The surge in violence threatens to prolong or derail the formation of a new national unity government, for which negotiations have already been mired by acrimony.
Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador, had been trying to persuade Sunni leaders to engage fully with the Shiites and Kurds while also being critical of Shiite leaders thought to support government death squads.
But the new wave of sectarian attacks, has pushed both Sunni and Shiite politicians further away from the Americans.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, has opened internal investigations to determine whether officers are running death squads.
The attack on the Askariya Shrine has strengthened the position of hard-line Shiite officials, who are using the attack as justification for the use of Shiite militias that the United States forces had been trying to disband.
Though Shiite leaders, including Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, condemned the anti-Sunni violence on Thursday, there were no open condemnations of the Mahdi Army, Sadr's militia that is thought to have led many of the violent protests.
Sadr's office issued a statement calling on the Mahdi Army to protect holy sites in Samarra and elsewhere, and demanding that the new Iraqi Parliament issue a schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops so that Iraq could operate as a sovereign country, responsible for its own security.
"This situation is mostly because of the existence of the occupation," Sadr said in the statement. "We charge the occupation forces with all the responsibility."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Thursday blamed Israel and the United States for the shrine bombing, in a speech broadcast on state television.
The 47 Iraqis killed south of Baghdad were civilians who had been pulled off buses at a fake checkpoint in the farming area of Nahrawan, an Interior Ministry official said.
The religious affiliation of the victims, who had been returning from a protest, was not immediately clear.
Violence has been rampant in the Nahrawan region for some time, and Sunni Arab militants and Mahdi militiamen fought a pitched battle there last autumn that killed least 21 people.
The seven U.S. troops killed Wednesday died in two separate roadside bombings.
Four soldiers were killed near the insurgent stronghold of Hawija, north of Baghdad, and three near the Shiite- dominated town of Balad.
Many victims of the sectarian killings in Baghdad appeared to be Sunni Arabs living in or near Shiite enclaves in the east of the city, an Interior Ministry official said.
Smoke from burning Sunni mosques could be seen in the sky from some of these neighborhoods, especially those near impoverished Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold.
Some Shiites living in Sunni Arab neighborhoods hastily assembled neighborhood-watch groups, in which children joined the ranks of guards.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
BAGHDAD At least 138 Iraqis, most of them Sunni Arabs, including a number of clerics, were killed in central Iraq on Wednesday and Thursday in the maelstrom of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of one of the country's most sacred Shiite shrines, Iraqi officials said.
Seven American soldiers also died in bombings, the U.S. military said Thursday.
Sunni Arab politicians broke off talks with Shiite and Kurdish leaders over the formation of a new government, saying that the Shiites were encouraging reprisals against Sunnis.
Across Iraq, thousands of Shiites took to the streets in a second day of protests against the attack in Samarra, 95 kilometers, or 60 miles, north of Baghdad, which destroyed the dome of Al Askariya, also known as the Golden Mosque because of its color.
The protests Thursday were mostly peaceful, though Shiites raided several Sunni mosques in Baghdad and set fire to at least two.
In the deadliest attack in the past two days, 47 people returning from a protest on Wednesday were pulled off buses south of Baghdad and shot in their heads, an Interior Ministry official said Thursday.
Three journalists working for Al Arabiya television were ambushed and killed by gunmen on the outskirts of Samarra as they were reporting on the shrine bombing, the network said Thursday. (Page 10)
Political and religious leaders, including the Shiite cleric Moktada al- Sadr, whose followers were thought to be largely responsible for the anti- Sunni reprisals, called for restraint. They warned that Iraq could slip into full-fledged civil war.
The government set a curfew of 8 p.m. and canceled leave for all soldiers and police officers. Government offices were closed, and the police operated checkpoints along the relatively quiet streets of the capital.
With the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, which houses the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, and with retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques, tension was high across the country on Thursday.
The U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, spent much of the day talking to politicians and appealing for calm.
He asked that Iraq's political process remain on track, despite the anger felt by Sunni and Shiite Arabs, both toward each other and toward Americans.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadany, a senior official in the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest Sunni Arab party, said by telephone that his party had withdrawn from talks to form a four-year government with the main Shiite and Kurdish parties.
Mashhadany said his group would not return to the negotiating table until the government had brought to justice those responsible for attacking Sunni Arabs.
"We're not ready to negotiate with the killers," he said. "We think what happened yesterday was organized. It had all been organized the night before."
The attacks and deaths in Iraq over the past two days add up to the worst sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion.
But Mashhadany accused the U.S. military of standing aside as Shiites slaughtered Sunnis: "The security portfolio is in the hands of the Americans, but yesterday we didn't see any Humvees," he said. "We didn't see any military reaction."
U.S. commanders have said they hope to make a significant reduction in the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of this year, and that enough Iraqi soldiers and police officers should be trained by then to hand over security responsibilities in many areas.
The Pentagon said that the failure to prevent the bombing and subsequent violence was the responsibility of new Iraqi police units.
Even in Iraq, local security forces were said to have done little to contain the violence of the past days, and in some cases they reportedly participated in attacks on mosques.
The surge in violence threatens to prolong or derail the formation of a new national unity government, for which negotiations have already been mired by acrimony.
Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador, had been trying to persuade Sunni leaders to engage fully with the Shiites and Kurds while also being critical of Shiite leaders thought to support government death squads.
But the new wave of sectarian attacks, has pushed both Sunni and Shiite politicians further away from the Americans.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, has opened internal investigations to determine whether officers are running death squads.
The attack on the Askariya Shrine has strengthened the position of hard-line Shiite officials, who are using the attack as justification for the use of Shiite militias that the United States forces had been trying to disband.
Though Shiite leaders, including Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, condemned the anti-Sunni violence on Thursday, there were no open condemnations of the Mahdi Army, Sadr's militia that is thought to have led many of the violent protests.
Sadr's office issued a statement calling on the Mahdi Army to protect holy sites in Samarra and elsewhere, and demanding that the new Iraqi Parliament issue a schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops so that Iraq could operate as a sovereign country, responsible for its own security.
"This situation is mostly because of the existence of the occupation," Sadr said in the statement. "We charge the occupation forces with all the responsibility."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Thursday blamed Israel and the United States for the shrine bombing, in a speech broadcast on state television.
The 47 Iraqis killed south of Baghdad were civilians who had been pulled off buses at a fake checkpoint in the farming area of Nahrawan, an Interior Ministry official said.
The religious affiliation of the victims, who had been returning from a protest, was not immediately clear.
Violence has been rampant in the Nahrawan region for some time, and Sunni Arab militants and Mahdi militiamen fought a pitched battle there last autumn that killed least 21 people.
The seven U.S. troops killed Wednesday died in two separate roadside bombings.
Four soldiers were killed near the insurgent stronghold of Hawija, north of Baghdad, and three near the Shiite- dominated town of Balad.
Many victims of the sectarian killings in Baghdad appeared to be Sunni Arabs living in or near Shiite enclaves in the east of the city, an Interior Ministry official said.
Smoke from burning Sunni mosques could be seen in the sky from some of these neighborhoods, especially those near impoverished Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold.
Some Shiites living in Sunni Arab neighborhoods hastily assembled neighborhood-watch groups, in which children joined the ranks of guards.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Thom Shanker from Washington |
